Big doin's in Baltimore today!

Today in Baltimore, President-elect Obama came into town on a railroad car and drew a very large crowd of well-wishers downtown at War Memorial Plaza. Police crowd estimators estimated that the crowd numbered 30,000, which by coincidence was also the amount of police on duty. They just buddied up, one cop to one spectator, and everyone got along fine.

Baltimore's mayor, Sheila Dixon, currently under indictment for theft and various other charges, was not on the dais with the other dignitaries, but was seen at the edge of the crowd.

Herhonor used to be a school teacher, and I wonder if she is as perturbed as I by the constant refrain from locals with TV cameras pointed at their uvulae that this is a "historical" day. It is a historic day. "Historical" means of, relating to, or having the character of history. The Caine Mutiny is a historical novel, being based on events in history. War and Peace is a historic novel.

Or, to get more to the point, if an anthropologist came to town and, while digging up an old privy, found Lincoln's cell phone, that digging would be historical. The cell phone that Lincoln carried that fateful night at Ford's Theatre would be historic.

What? when? oh.

In the Lincoln story, please substitute "jack knife" for cell phone, but daggone if I can see how he was able to send and receive texts over a knife.

Also in the big town tonight, our landmark Senator Theatre gave a shoutout to the Ravens on their famous marquee:


Go RAVENS indeed! Beat Pittsburgh, and then we won't have to hear any more about those sandwiches up there that just look so good to those of us in carb deprivation.

Enjoy the game!